One Shot Upon a Time
by Just040Fun
Summary: Just a few Charming Family Fluff Shots... Starting with a sweet moment between David and Henry at Regina s vault in Lady of the Lake. Disclaimer: Don t own anything...
1. Operation Viper

_A/N: Picks up right after David finds Henry down in Regina´s vault. Slightly AU but trying to keep both of them in character :)_

_A/N 2: Please be aware that English is not my first language, so please excuse a few mistakes here and there :) Looking forward to your reviews! May accept some prompts as well!_

**Operation Viper**

"Maybe we should have gone with Operation Viper" David joked humourlessly as he picked Henry up from the ground. The kid seemed startled for a moment but really relieved at the same time.

"How did you know I was down here?" Henry asked in surprise.

"Your mom called saying you invited her for lunch. And when you stood her up, she went back to her office, saw her Keys missing... Figured out the rest. She would have come herself but she didn´t think you would go with her." He explained briefly as he checked for injuries in the child´s body while he dusted off his clothes. Once he made himself sure there were no further consequences, he kneeled down and took a deep breath before holding Henry´s elbows firmly. "Henry, what were you THINKING?".

To David´s amusement, the child seemed a bit unsure of what to say. Henry seemed to Always have an answer on the tip of his tongue even on the rare events Emma had chastised him for his stunts before. For what it looked like, he did not really consider that now he had another parent figure to answer to. And a male one, to make things a bit more confusing. Henry had never really had a father figure in his life and even though he had instantly accepted David as his "Grandpa" upon the breaking of the curse, he had never considered his earlier disobedience would earn him an angry grandfather to deal with.

"I´m... I´m... uh... sorry?" He tried, finally as he seemed not sure if he should try to disentangle himself from David´s grasp. Neither of his moms fancied touching that much and David´s actions seemed all too weird for him, albeit... not in a bad way.

David made the next move for him, as he engulfed the ten-year-old in a bone-crushing hug. "You will NEVER do anything like this EVER again! Do you hear me, young man?" Been raised far away from the formalities of the royalty Regina was used to and not having suffered the hardships Emma had in her childhood years, David was much more forward when it came to relationships. He knew who he had affection for and would not usually hold back when he felt like hugging someone. Henry, on the other hand, seemed tense at first but relaxed as David´s strong hands found the back of his head and craddled it to his neck as he usually did with Emma whenever she let him.

"If I had arrived ONE minute later you could have been killed" David continued as he let go of the boy to hold him at arm´s lenght. "What do you have to say for yourself?" He finished as Henry´s eyes went from startled to ashamed and even a bit scared of the highly emotional outburst from prince Charming.

"I... I just want them back!" He squealed in a voice that seemed much younger than his normal one. "It was not supposed to be like this. I should be there with them! Riding horses and learning to sword fight..."

"I know... I know kid..." David wiped Henry´s single tear with his thumb "And we will get them back. And you will sword fight and ride horses and all that stuff. But we will do this TOGETHER, ok? So, no more sneaking out or disobeying my orders, ok?" He urged as Henry gave him no response. "Can you promise me you will never pull a stunt like this again?"

"I... don´t know..." David narrowed his eyes as the kid tried to fix his last sentence. "I mean, yes, I promise, but..."

"But?" David echoed trying to understand what was going on in the boy´s head.

"But can you promise you will let me help? I think it´s a bit unfair that I was the one to help breaking the curse and I am still been treated as a child who can´t do anything while my Mom and my Grandma have been taken away!" Henry finished a bit higher than he intended and brought his hand up to his mouth as if he were dreading his grandfather´s response to his outburst.

David finally let go of one of Henry´s shoulders as he ran his fingers through his head. Between Emma and Henry, he felt his hair would be becoming gray or fall very soon... "You know kid... you are actually right about that. You were the one to wake us all up from that damn curse, but it does not change the fact that you are still a child. Therefore, you are still entitled to listen to your elders when it come to stuff that can get you in harm´s way. If you really wanted to follow with a well ellaborated plan to get magical stuff out of Regina´s vault you should have come to me with that instead of deliberately disobeying me and getting yourself in danger."

"You would not listen to me!" Henry argued, stubborness in his voice. Prince Charming sighed. Snow´s genes were showing to be quite strong in their grandson. The kid did have a point, though. Probably he would not have listened as he should have.

"Listen, kid... I guess we both have some points here and just arguing over them is not gonna get us anywhere. So, I have a deal for you. I promise I will always listen to you and consider my options on your ideas and inputs." Henry eyes lit excitedly. "HOWEVER, if I decide the idea is too dangerous for you to be part of the plan, you are to stay put and do as I say while I try to come up with a way that is not gonna hurt anybody in the process. Is that clear?" Henry nodded his head furiously as David´s voice went one octave higher on his last sentence. He knew Henry was a good kid who just wanted to help. Maybe now he could try and understand him better as he got know him a bit more. "Great. Now, we need to get you back to school and I need to make sure no one else finds this place."

"Gramps?" Henry asked tentatively as David led him to the yellow bug. "Am I in trouble?" Something about Henry´s sheepshy smile had David considering just hugging him and saying no but he knew better than that. As a way of gaining some time, he glanced at his watch and realized there would be no much point in driving the child all the way to school right now.

"Well, did you learn anything from today, young man?" Henry deliberately avoided his grandfather´s eyes as he nodded. "Use your words, Henry" David tried to hide a smile as his grandson tried to find his voice again. The kid seemed a bit embarrassed as he got chastised by Prince Charming, of all people.

"I won´t disobey you like that anymore and will always come to you before going on with risky plans like that..."

David ruffled the kid´s hair as he opened the passenger door of the bug. "It´s too late to get you back to school now. So this is what we are gonna do. You are grounded to the car until I finish some errands and then we can go home and you can tell me more about that plan of yours, ok?" David blinked as Henry smiled half ashamed and half amused at his grandfather´s answer. "BUT if anything like this happens again, there will be consequences. Please keep that in mind, young prince". David finished sternly. He could not really think of any punishments to threaten the child with at the moment, being the softy he was, so he just decided it would be better to leave it to the child´s imagination. Henry cringed slightly at his grandfather´s tone but regained his composure as David playfully smacked the top of his head and ushered him to the car.

"_It´s actually not that bad... to have a dad kinda thing around after all" _Henry thought as David disappeared in the crowd heading towards the mayor´s office to let Regina know the child was okay.


	2. He is Okay

_A/N: Tks to nahbois68 for correcting a terrible misspelling back in chapter 1! And tks to Sara K M for the lovely review! This is a one shot for nahbois68, where we can see some of Charming and Regina´s interaction over the last chapter´s events. Not sure if that is what you wanted to see. Please let me know :)_

_A/N 2: I am not sure about when Charming started working at the mines, so it MIGHT be a bit out of place but please ignore that tiny bit if it is not accurate._

**"He´s Okay…"**

David had never been one to just sit around and wait for things to happen. Even when he had been ruling a kingdom beside Snow, he had always seen himself more as knight leading the troops from the battlefield than a prince doing paperwork back in the castle. Therefore, it did not take long before he gave up sitting down at the Sheriff station, forwarded all calls to his phone and went down to the mines to help the dwarves with the Fairy Dust.

David felt at ease working along with the dwarves. Not having to use his mind in a job was a nice change for a few hours, at least. Today, however, as he put all his strength on the axe in an effort to clear his mind from the hurt that came from missing his wife and daughter every second of the day, he was almost driving his co-workers crazy as his cell phone rang for what it seemed like the 100th time in less than five minutes. "CHARMING!" Leroy yelled as a way to get his attention. No one but Snow used to call him that. "Or David, or James, or whatever it is that you go by these days…" The dwarf smirked as the prince did not answer to any of the previous names he had called him while his phone rang. "Your cell is ringing. Will you get it before someone throws it out of the mines?"

"Sorry, guys…" David smiled apologetically. "Sheriff Station" He answered automatically but narrowed his eyes instantly as the Evil Queen´s voice came through the speaker.

"David, please do not hang up!" Her voice sounded desperate and the lack of the standard animosity on her tone kept him from snapping at her as she continued to his silence. "I think Henry is in trouble!"

David´s expression became blank as she explained how the child had her out of her office to get the keys to her vault and the dwarves stopped working as they realized how startled their leader had become upon the phone call. Leroy had to shake Charming to get him talking again.

"Where is it, Regina? Where is this vault you are talking about? Where is Henry?" David yelled as he left the mines full speed to the yellow bug.

"It is in the Cemetery. Underneath my Father´s mausoleum." She whispered. David was already in the car by then and about to hang up without answering as her voice came through the receiver once more. This time lower than ever. "Will you let me know you got him out of there safe?" The pleading was clear as she finished. "He is my son too".

David´s mind flooded with exasperated answers at her request but could mouth none of them. The woman did raise his grandson for ten years and he had absolutely no time to argue about the circunstances in which she had ended up doing so. "OK" he answered shortly as he drove the car full speed to the cemetery.

Regina´s hands were trembling as she let go of the phone. As much as she hated the "Charmings", this time she had to trust her son, the thing she loved the most, to David. After all, she knew Henry would not be willing to come with her even if she went down to the vault herself.

Back in the Enchanted Forest, religion was not something common. At least not the way it was in the "Real World". However, during her time as the mayor of Storybrooke, she had ended up attending a few of the Church Events and ended up using some of the things she had learned as excuses for her actions, such as going to her father´s grave every week without raising suspicions by staying there and praying for a few minutes until she was alone and could go down to the vault in peace.

This time, though, Regina was not feeling like the daughter of Cora nor the apprentice of Rumplestiltskin about to go to down the vault to crush a heart or perform a dark curse. She just felt like Regina Mills, the mother of Henry Mills, as she went down on her knees facing the window overlooking the cemetery and started to pray softly as if guiding Henry´s action to no harm before Charming could get to him.

* * *

And that was the position she was when she heard a knocking sound coming from outside her office. She still had tears in her eyes and her hair was a mess, but she could not care less as she ran to the door and cracked it open to reveal an equally disheveled Prince Charming.

"He´s okay". Was all he had to say and all she had to hear. With that, he turned his back on her and went away without looking back. Regina kneeled down once more as she collected the keys Charming had ended up dropping to the ground as her hands were trembling way too much to keep them from falling.

"Henry is okay." She repeated to herself weakly once more, before letting one final tear escape her eyes.


	3. Moments (1)

_A/N: I´ve always felt like Charming´s pep talk in season 3 about "the moments" did not come originally from Snow. I think she heard it from somebody else and I just wonder…. By the expression she had when Emma quoted it while confronting Henry in Pan´s body, it seems to have more meaning than she let go when she gave that speech to Charming. I have a few different ideas on this same theme and may come back to it with another storyline afterwards. Therefore, the (1) in the title __J_

_A/N: I am changing the rating to T just in case…_

_A/N: Italics means flashback... Once again, slightly AU._

* * *

**"****Moments (1)"**

"So…" Snow smiled as she went to bed one night. "You finally gave your daughter the _Moments Speech_" She smiled, touching his bare torso and finding the usual spot to rest her head against it.

"I always said I would" Charming grinned as he remembered the first time he had heard that same pep talk from her all those years ago. Back in her parent´s summer palace, right after defeating Medusa. "How do you always know what to say? I wonder where you got that one from". He yawned and let one of his arms fall around her as the other turned off the lamp beside their bed.

Snow took advantage of the darkness to let her eyes brim with tears without been noticed. It had been a while since she had shed any for those people. But she could still recall that time she got comforted by them…

* * *

_Having learned just recently how to ride a horse, little Snow White knew she should not be trying to get on her favourite mare all by herself yet. But she did not really have the intention to do so, she just wanted to pet her four-legged friend and hope the mare herself would one day let her know she was allowed to ride her safely._

_"__Hey, is that your horse?" Snow turned back as she saw a young boy, about the same age as her, approach the mare and pet her. "It´s great! I think it is the biggest one I´ve ever seen!" He said excitedly as Snow cringed her nose at him._

_"__It´s not an "it", it´s a "she"" Snow corrected looking a bit annoyed but flattered all the same. Her mare was the best-looking horse she had ever seen as well._

_The boy did not like the tone on her voice though, and changed his attitude to a mocking one. "I bet SHE is not even yours then. I doubt somebody with a frilly dress like that has ever done horse-back riding before."_

_"__That´s ridiculous! I have done it before" Snow spat back as she automatically climbed up and started stretching one of her legs across the animal´s torso. Before she could finish, though, for no apparent reason, the mare just went wild at the same time the boy disappeared in a puff of purple smoke behind her._

* * *

_"__I will never ride again!" Snow cried as a gentle woman picked her up from the ground after saving her from the wild horse._

_"__Nonsense!" The lady answered as she wiped away a few stray tears going down the little girl´s cheek. "That was just one small bad moment up there. I am sure you already had many good ones horseback riding before. Am I right?" She asked and got Snow thinking about the first time her father had rode a horse with her on his lap. The little girl smiled and the woman continued. "You see? Now, the best way to overcome your fears is to get back on that horse as soon as you can and then you can ride away to new and even better moments." Snow could not help launching herself to the older woman, who happily hugged her back and smiled._

_"__This lady is right you know" A handsome man had come down the hill with Snow´s horse walking calmly along with him. Then, he gave her the reins and instructed. "For now, I think you should just guide her back home but afterwards you can use the lesson you learned from that dangerous moment to not do anything risky like that again before you are ready to ride on your own." Snow looked down as she realized this man knew she was probably not trained enough to be wandering around alone. He seemed quite familiar with horses, by the way he had her mare calm and serene enough for her to take the reins back. The woman rose to her feet, let go of one of Snow´s shoulders and smoothed her hair affectionately._

_ "__Yes, learning a lesson from a bad moment is always a good way for you to see that all moments are worth living. Even if there are bad ones on the way, they will prepare you for the good ones afterwards." The woman finished. "Now, Daniel, let´s go home. I will never hear the end of it if I am late." She said rolling her eyes a bit. Snow realized the woman was the most beautiful person she had ever seen. She had deep black eyes and shiny black hair that went down to her back in nicely arranged braids. "After all, a lady never misses her tea time." She blinked at Snow and ushered her to go. "I think you are brave enough to get back home on your own, right?"_

_"__Yes, thank you, miss…."_

_"__Regina" The nice lady answered and got back on her horse, not looking back._

* * *

"Snow?" Charming called his wife´s name for the third time in a row. "Are you okay? You kind of spaced out there…"

"Oh, sorry… what were we talking about?" She asked, distractedly.

"About where you got the _moment´s speech_ from" He answered, a bit puzzled by her reaction to his trivial question. "Was it your mother?" He continued, trying to get her back to talking, as she seemed unsure of what to say next.

"My… Mother?" She repeated, slowly. "Uhm… yes… I mean, maybe. I am not sure. It´s been a long time, after all…" She said, trying to sound nonchalant as she closed her eyes once more and snuggled closer to her husband.

Charming did not have to look at her to know his wife was lying, but he decided to let it go. Maybe the moment she heard that speech was, after all, not necessarily a good one. But he knew she considered it as worth living as any if she had gone in such a deep emotional estate just by thinking about it. If one day she was ready, he would know and be completely open to share that moment with her as well.


	4. Bucket List

**Bucket List**

"Do you think Hook is coming to live with Emma and Henry once they move in?" David asked Snow out of the blue as she passed him the screwdriver. They were currently at Emma´s new apartment installing a new shower for her.

"I don´t know. " Snow answered truthfully. "Why do you ask?" She smiled. "Does it bother you? I thought you had come to terms with Hook after you found out you already knew him from the past…"

David finished his job and came off the ladder to take a seat next his wife on the floor. "No… I mean… It´s not about Hook, it´s… If they just move in together then… Oh, forget it." He tried to stand up again but got stopped by his wife´s hand on his arm.

"You can tell me anything, you know that, right? What is in your mind?" She asked, a bit worried by his uneasiness. "You have been acting a bit weird since Emma rented this place."

David took a deep breath. He felt embarrassed about this, but he could not help it. "If Emma just starts living with Hook, there won´t be any… uhm… proper… celebrations… I mean, I know it´s old fashioned, but that is our daughter, you know? A princess…"

Snow´s eyes lit with realization and she let go of an endearing chuckle as she cupped her husband´s chin with her hands. "You want to walk her down the aisle." His eyes avoided her gaze and she continued, adoration on her voice. "Charming… there is nothing wrong about wanting that I mean… We have already lost so much…"

"Exactly!" David exclaimed, frustrated. "I didn´t get to do any of that stuff... to guide her through her first steps, to try to get her to say dad before mom, to scare away her first boyfriend… all the _Dad Bucket List_, you know". His voice sounded tired and sad. "Walking her down the aisle would be the last bit of normalcy I could get with her at this point. But I know that nowadays in this land… it may not really work like that anymore. I think I have lost even the timing to do that for her."

Snow didn´t know what to say. She knew how much Charming had struggled before admitting all that. He would normally try to act so _okay_ with everything that happened and treat Emma just as if they had always been Father and Daughter that sometimes they almost forgot he had hurt all that time too. It was not just Emma who had missed being a daughter. He had missed being a dad just as much.

From the hallway, Emma Swan´s eyes prickled with tears. She had accidentally left the door open so her parents did not hear her coming in. With a deep breath, she recomposed herself as she left the apartment and came in again, making sure to make more noise to be heard by them and pretending to be completely oblivious to her father´s confession. She was not ready to face that just yet.


	5. Superpower

A/N: I know this has been done loads of times before, but I just could not help it. By the way Snow has always been tricked by people (Evil Queen included), we know Emma´s "Superpower" does not come from her. So, let´s just leave it to David…

A/N: There will be a sequel to this one to let you know what Emma is lying to her father about. Please bear with me as I try to put these one shots together J

A/N: It´s up to you how long after the previous one shot this occurred ;)

**"****Superpower"**

"What did you say, there Emma?" Charming narrowed his eyes at his daughter, who actually cringed under his gaze. The man had to hold back a chuckle. In her 30´s or not, Emma had come to see them as parents now and could not help some automatic responses when they went mom or dad-mode.

"I have no idea what you are talking about, Dad." Emma answered, suddenly finding the tree outside the window behind her father quite interesting.

Charming followed her eyes and grinned. She was avoiding his eyes at all costs. Half amused and half annoyed, the father stood up from his desk, closed the curtains behind him and marched closer to Emma´s, crossing his arms and staring down at her.

"So, you are going back to New York on your own, _just to gather some stuff_ on the same weekend Hook has told Henry he will not be able to take him sailing because he has repaired his ship?"

"I had absolutely no idea Hook had cancelled on Henry this weekend" She retorted, looking through some papers on her desk and randomly signing a few.

"Where exactly do you think that "Superpower" of yours come from, princess?" David grinned. "Given how many times your mother has been tricked by all her enemies, I would not bet my money on her…"

Emma looked up for the first time staring at Charming slightly shocked. She actually had never thought about that before. Then, it came to her mind that her dad was actually not bad in seeing when people were lying to him. He had seen through Snow´s plans to capture Medusa on his own honeymoon, after all.

"So, are you telling me the truth about where you are going this weekend or should I not accept to switch turns with you, dear daughter?" He crossed his arms again and waited for her answer, trying to sound as stern as he could. Even though he felt he had the duty to hate Hook just for… well, just for being Emma´s boyfriend, he actually did not hate him that much anymore. Mainly after he remembered one encounter many years ago, with a prince head over hills for his princess who was locked up in Regina´s dungeons… But that did not mean he was willing to see them just disappear for days without letting him know where they were. Royal blood or not, she was still his little princess.

"Oh, come on, Dad… I am not lying…"

"Who is lying about what?" Snow waltzed into the Sheriff Station and put her arms around Charming´s head, startling him.

"Nothing!" Emma answered, thankful for the distraction. "Well, I think Mom probably came around for a reason. So I will leave you guys to it and head home a bit earlier. I will not be coming in tomorrow, Dad, thanks for switching weekends with me!" Emma rose from her chair as she collected her purse, stacked all her paperwork under a book and made a quick exit from the station.

"Well, sweetheart… I actually only came in to see you for a bit. Ruby invited me for a girl´s night in with Ashley at hers tonight. I hope you don´t mind. Sean will be watching both Neal and Alexandra. Now I have to go, or the grocery store will be closed by the time I get there." Snow said in a singing tone and left the station in a blur, making Charming realize she only kept her arms around his head long enough for him not to go after their daughter.

"I don´t even have to have any _superpowers_ with such bad liars at home." David sighed and stood up from the chair to check on Emma´s paperwork. Since he was going to be filling in for her, he might as well start organizing that mess now. Looking through the papers, David could see how distracted Emma was under his questioning and even smirked for a second. She had actually signed some blank papers while she pretended to be working. _"Well, I guess I will have to get the spare keys to her desk tomorrow before I fill in for her."_ He thought and went back to his desk after filling a big cup of coffee to get himself through the night shift.

It was about one in the morning when Charming came in exhausted from the day and dreading his early shift to cover for Emma in only a few hours. So, even though he was quite annoyed at Snow´s note saying she would probably be coming back only in the morning from Ruby´s, he did not give it too much thought as he showered and got into bed.

* * *

Storybrooke had been calm on the past few months, so the being a Sheriff had pretty much become a bureaucratic job. Everybody was trying to attach their personalities from their cursed selves to their Enchanted Forest ones and without a real registering system, it had been decided they would all get their paper work done and stored at the Police Station, so that it would be easier to find relatives and recognize people in case of any occurrences.

David was distracted as he went through his stack of papers and found some information missing. He then went on to Emma´s desk and unlocked the drawers to her files. After finding what he needed, he was about to close the drawer but something caught his eyes. It looked like a pamphlet. Curiosity took the best of him as he took the folder into his palm and read it. Seemed like some travel leaflet to…

"VEGAS?!"


	6. Elope

_A/N: Tks for the reviews! Sara K M and Icetear1. Sara, I totally agree with you about Charming´s relationship with Emma. And I think their father-daughter relationship is underrated in the show as well.. sadly._

_A/N: As I said previously, it´s up to you how long it took from the day Emma heard her parent´s talking about how they wish she had a proper wedding to this day. I am just looking for the sweet moments here ;)_

_A/N: Everybody may be a bit out of character for the next few shots…. Please bear with me for fluff´s sake ;)_

**"****Elope"**

"SNOW!" David yelled as he ran back home right away after finding the Vegas folder in Emma´s drawer. "I cannot believe you would let our DAUGHTER ELOPE in VEGAS!"

"What?" Snow asked a startled by his voice. "What are you talking about?" She asked sounding actually surprised.

"Don´t pretend you don´t know about this. Emma didn´t want to tell me where she was going with Hook this weekend but I found THIS in her desk! Why is she doing this to me?" Charming looked dishevelled by all the times he had put his fingers through his hair on the way back home.

"I already lost all her firsts… Her first steps, words, smile…. Why can´t she give me at least the chance to walk her down the aisle? It would have been my only chance to be there for her like a normal father would for his princess…" He finished as he sat down, face on both his palms, elbows resting on his knees. Snow seemed shocked as she studied the leaflet he had brought. It had a few pictures of a casino with a small chapel labelled _whoever has been to Vegas without eloping while drunk at least once, has never been to Vegas_. Some pictures of crazy-looking brides and grooms spinning each other or kissing while holding a glass of alcohol were plastered around the bigger image of the altar.

"Charming, I am sure there is some explanation for this. I swear I know nothing about Emma getting on a plane with Hook to Vegas to elope in a casino." Snow tried to sooth Charming as she sat by him and took his hand between hers. The phrase itself seemed ridiculous for her own ears but she did her best not to chuckle at the words.

"Why do I always feel like nobody considers me her father yet? We have been through so much together. I know we are the same age and that we did not see her grow up but… It just feels not fair that you can still be her friend and a part of her life in a way that I will never be…" His voice was becoming emotionless as he spoke. Snow´s heart melted. It was the first time Charming had ever voiced he was jealous of her relationship with their daughter. "I mean… Hook did not even ask me for permission to…"

"That is true but it was supposed to be fixed in about an hour, mate." Hook suddenly came through the door of the loft, dressed in a white navy uniform. "I was just going to clear it with your lovely wife first." He marched in Snow´s direction, bowing for her "Milady, do I have your permission to address your husband already?" Snow just nodded and David looked at him, perplex for a second. "I thought you two would be gone by now…"

"Well, your Highness" the pirate continued as he bowed respectfully towards David this time. "I have never courted a woman with a father to answer to before but… I would dare say I still cherish my neck enough not to try to get away from asking the prince´s permission to marry his daughter. It would also be bad form and my brother would never forgive me for that". He smirked.

But after that, he straightened himseld and put his right hand across his heart, all of his usual sarcasm and playfulness now completely gone from his voice. His face was solemn as he proceeded. "Your Highnesses… I could spend eternity saying how much I love your daughter and why I wish to marry her and it would still not be enough to earn the honour to become her husband. However, I would only like to say that if you are willing to give me permission to do so I will spend that time treasuring her and Henry´s happiness for as long as I shall live."

For the first time ever, Killian did not finish his speech with a witty remark. He actually seemed nervous and strangely intimidated by the parents of the woman he loved as he waited for their response.

Both parents seemed astounded. Even Snow didn´t know Hook intended to ask for their permission for this. She looked at her husband, waiting for his reaction.

David took his hands out of Snow´s as he approached Hook.

"Well, Jones… given who my daughter is I am pretty aware there is nothing we could do that could stop her from marrying whoever she wants… but I have to say…" Prince Charming rested his right hand on Killian´s shoulder "I never thought I would say that but I am actually glad that _whoever_ turned out to be you."

Killian smiled and for the first time in centuries, his smile reached his eyes fully as the two men shook hands and patted each other´s back. "I just wish you had done this before so that I could at least try to force my daughter to have a proper wedding instead of eloping in Vegas on the next day." He said jokingly, but sorrow was clear in his eyes. "Well… I guess that´s Emma for you, right. And I would not have my daughter any other way." He finished.

"What is Vegas?" Hook asked puzzled and Snow could not stop herself from giggling loudly.

"I will explain that to you later, my dear soon-to-be son-in-law. Now, Charming, why don´t you come with me? I have something I need to talk to you about. Hook, we will see you soon, ok? Don´t be late". David looked at his wife, confused, as she took his hand and practically dragged him upstairs.


	7. Aisle

**Aisle**

"Hi Dad." Emma smiled shyly as David and Snow entered the room. His eyes went wide as he took in the sight before him. Emma was wearing a long one shouldered white dress in a silky material covered with a lacy fabric, full of small flowers, not puffy as they used to wear in the Enchanted Forest, but it was the most wonderful thing he had ever seen in his life. Her hair was loose with Snow´s tiara on top of it and some wild flowers entangled in her curls.

David was still speechless as Ruby and Ashley let go of Emma´s dress and left the room silently. Snow went straight to her daughter, tears in her eyes. "You are most certainly the fairest of them all". She said as she cupped her face in her palms and brought her head down to kiss her forehead. "I will now leave you, princess, to your father. I think he wishes to have an audience with you too" Snow winked as she left the room after giving Charming a gentle tug in his arms to get him moving.

David was flabbergasted. First, he thinks his dear daughter is eloping in a casino out of the blue without as much as telling him and now she is standing in front of him in a stunning wedding dress looking at him expectantly, as if trying to find the way to start talking to him.

"Ok, neither one of us is good with this stuff, so… I will try to be straight here." Her words were short but David could feel the softness of her tone as she took his hand between hers. "Dad… I know how much you wanted us to be a family. I know how you suffered the day you had to give me up and I am sorry for all the time I took to get over my defences and let you in. I do love you guys and I want this to work. Before I met you, I did not know what it was to be loved nor to be part of a family. Now… The two of you have taught me so much about those things… that I actually feel like I can finally begin one of my own. I am not leaving you, I am just adding someone to our family. Can I have your blessing on this? Will you walk me down the aisle tonight?"

David could have said a lot of things. But even all the mushy stuff that came into his mind could not translate what he was feeling at that moment. So he ended up with "Princess… it would be my honour".


	8. Normalcy

**"****Big Small Moments/Normalcy"**

"David was still in a slightly shocked state as the father-daughter duo sat in the bedroom awaiting the time to go down. Seeing he would not be doing anything but appreciating her for a while, Emma performed the spell she had recently learned from Regina for this specific occasion. With the flick of two fingers, she had her father refreshed and dressed in a proper attire, one that reminded him vaguely of the one he had been wearing on his own wedding, but with a more sober tone to it, thanks to the darker colours rather than the shiny silver details.

"I know this is not the big wedding you had in your mind for your first born heir" Emma joked, standing up from the bed and motioning him to accompany her to the window overlooking the tiny garden in the back of the building.

Long strings of Christmas lamps were spread randomly across the space and there were wild flowers covering the grass. At the far back of the garden, there was a simple white altar adorned with white roses and orchids and an arch made of various flowers and herbs. A long red carpet leading to the altar was the only thing that looked new in the seemingly improvised decoration. Prince Charming felt his throat tighten with emotion as he realized the arch was exactly like the one they had improvised for his first wedding to Snow, at his mother´s deathbed.

"Think of this as a compromise, a small thing with only our strange but highly lovable family. I guess it is better than eloping behind your back, right?" Emma giggled, bringing her father back from his trance.

"I think sometimes you all forget I was never born to be or to have heirs to anything but my farm animals" David sighed and touched Emma´s shoulder, turning her around to face him and burying his eyes on hers.

"Do you really think that was what I wanted? A big fairy tale wedding just because you are royalty?" He asked, an edge to his voice and sternness on his eyes. Emma felt confused for a second and he finished "Emma, I love you exactly the way I did from the first time I knew you existed inside your mother. We had barely got married when she got pregnant and I could care less about your heritage at that point. For 28 years I thought I would never know you. Now that I can finally be a part of your life, you are dreaming if you think that I ever thought of your wedding day as a royal event that should happen just for the sake of it. And, if I might add… the term _princess _I use when I refer to you… that has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that your mother was born the daughter of a king. All I ever wanted was to spend this _moment_ with my _daughter_! No matter if I go down there in nothing but rags just to walk you to Killian with absolutely no one else in the room." David´s expression became soft again as he lingered on the word _moment_ and that was when she understood… There was absolutely no _small thing _for him when it came to her. There was no way he considered this _moment_ small and she could not help feeling the luckiest girl in the world for having her dad around to share it.

"As for that Vegas leaflet on your desk…." David started, playfully breaking the mood.

Emma gasped at that. _Crap, thought he had forgotten about it…_

* * *

"But why?" He finally asked once they left the bedroom to go down to the ceremony, her arm entangled in his. "I never thought you would be one to go for dresses or ceremonies… Not that I am complaining, of course" David smiled and caressed his daughter´s cheek with overwhelming affection.

"Well… Indeed… But I guess… Having some _normalcy_ in our busy schedules would not hurt, once in a while, don´t you think?" She winked.

Upon hearing the very word he had used all that time ago in her bathroom while fixing her shower made it click in his mind. That´s why she had done this. She wanted to give the two of them the opportunity to live at least this together. They both knew they would never get all those 28 years back. He would never do all the _Dad Bucket List _but today… Today his daughter showed him it was never late to check new boxes on that list. Now, they had forever to do that. As a family.


	9. Vegas and Talahasse

A/N: I personally don´t enjoy writing about weddings much but I think the moments leading to them and after them are rather fascinating ;)

A/N: For those who were wondering about the Vegas travel folder, this is for you!

A/N: AU on "Talahasse"

**"****Vegas and Talahasse"**

"Hey, mom, I´m here…" Emma chanted as she walked through her parent´s loft door to find an empty living room. There were magazines and toys scattered all over the floor and she could hear a faint giggling from upstairs, accompanied by her mother´s voice letting her know they would be down once she got Neal bathed and changed.

Feeling happier than ever after coming back from her one-week long honeymoon with Hook on board of his new ship (Ruby had volunteered to fill in for her and help David out at the station if Henry helped Granny at the diner), she could not be in a better place now. So despite the fact that she was not much of a cleaner, out of good mood, she decided to occupy herself sorting out the mess while her mother tended to her infant brother.

After collecting all the toys and putting them aside in Neal´s box next to his playpen and organizing the magazines on the stand, she proceeded to the pens and colour pencils, which seemed to have multiplied by the time she had collected them all to their cases. When she opened the drawers to put them in, she saw it. Colourful and slightly worn out after been kept for so many years among her faint youth memories: the Vegas Leaflet. She could not help feel a bit embarrassed her dad saw it on the day of her wedding. Despite letting everybody think she did it on purpose to mislead him on her real plans, she knew it was far from the truth. Even though it didn´t look like it, that pamphlet was more than a decade old…

* * *

_"__Let´s quit the Bonnie and Clayde act and start a life. Together!" His voice echoed in her mind as she marched to the train station and walked past the police officers, trying to keep her cool. Her eyes were glittering with both guilt and excitement as she looked for a distraction, so that she didn´t need to look at anybody until she was safe with her "withdrawals". Her well trained eyes soon found a nice one. A leaflet stand, located right next to the lockers she needed to get to. She got closer to it, with the intention of only pretending to scan through them so that she could take a good look at her surroundings and act nonchalant as she retrieved Neal´s watches._

_Something caught her eyes though. And she found herself actually taking one of the leaflets and reading through it. "Whoever has been to Vegas without eloping while drunk at least once has never been to Vegas"_

_Emma Swan had never been a romantic. Her life would not allow her to. But this… What she had with Neal was different from anything she had ever felt. There was really not much point in having a proper wedding, given they had no family or friends to share it with. This Vegas thing, however, felt like a nice celebration. They could just do it for the sake of fun and having no one there with them to celebrate with would not look weird at all. They could be normal for a change. No one who saw them doing that in Vegas would ever think they were two orphan thieves with nothing to show for. They would only think "Yeah, another drunk couple eloping in Vegas…"_

_She was brought back to reality when she heard one of the police officers laughing at the other. They seemed completely distracted now. Time to act. Without really thinking much, Emma slipped the leaflet into her purse and did what she was supposed to do. She could discuss this Vegas idea later with Neal, if they had the chance before fleeing to Canada._

* * *

_He was more than excited when she brought the watches and the leaflet back to the bug. They couldn´t be happier as he dropped on one knee and proposed to her, not with a ring, but with a watch. One of the stolen ones._

_The one that landed her red-handed in jail._

* * *

_A necklace, a leaflet and a baby. That was all she had that connected her to the man who betrayed her in the worst possible way. She silently went through her belongings on the way out of juvy. The baby had already been taken care of. She gave him up. She had to give him his best chance. The chance to grow up with a real family rather than his broken mess of a mother._

_The leaflet and the necklace, on the other hand… those were different. She would keep those. She would keep them as a reminder. A reminder not to build up her hopes, not to trust anyone else. Ever._

* * *

_After more than one decade, after finding out everything about her heritage, after finally meeting up with her son, after finding out why Neal left her all those years ago, there she was. Once again shedding a silent tear for that man. The man who had, unbeknownst to him, given and taken everything from her. It had been a few hours since his funeral. Henry was emotionless as he buried the man he considered scum due to the story he remembered. Emma, on the other hand, was lost. She didn´t know how she felt about him. There would always be a part of her that would love him and thank him for giving her Henry, for being the first person she ever loved or was loved by. But there would always be another one that would hate him for having to let her son go. At the moment, she had no idea where she stood._

_After dropping Henry off at Grannys she had wandered through town and her feet automatically brought her to the Sheriff Station. The first "proper job" she had ever had. After staring at it for a minute or so, the former Sheriff retrieved her keys from her pocket. Vaguely remembering a day in New York when she wondered what those keys were for, she opened the door to her old office. Everything seemed exactly the way she remembered. Paperwork spread across what used to be her desk and what used to be Graham´s (and afterwards her father´s). Feeling like "home", for a change, she sat in her old chair and put her feet up on her desk. It felt good._

_Back when she had been living with Mary Margareth, she had taken the habit of leaving some of her personal belongings in the station. She didn´t know why but for some reason it felt better to have her personal files lost among all the papers and folders at the station than close to her baby blanket back in her boxes at home. (And to be honest, she couldn´t help dreading her slightly overbearing roommate would one day come across those while cleaning her room or something and she didn´t really feel like sharing those back then.) Remembering that, she decided to take a look, just to see if it was still there. It would be good to finally be able to see that it still existed after thinking for a year that it had been turned to ashes during a fire in Boston._

_She unlocked a few drawers and finally found it. Emma Swan was not one to keep hold of many possessions. She used to say that having little helped her to move around but come to think of it, it was the other way around. She had little to keep her moving around and running away from creating roots anywhere._

_Less than ten pictures from her childhood years, mixed with a few old newspapers and some documents and reports from her social workers. A few school diplomas and some other random things. And that. What she had actually been looking for since she turned the keys to the drawers. Neatly stored between her birth certificate and the stack of pictures. The Vegas Leaflet, as she had come to call it._

_According to his story, he had run into August after proposing to her. Therefore, he was supposed to be telling her the truth when he told her he wanted to spend his life with her, starting at a Vegas wedding for crazy lovers and ending in a "normal" life in Talahasse, with a house and kids to go back to. For the first time in all those years, she looked at the pamphlet not with hate, but with longing. Longing for the life she should have had with him in Talahasse. Longing for all the moments Henry was supposed to have had growing up with him. Longing for a life neither of them would ever get._

_"__Emma!" Her father´s voice snapped her out of her stupor. In a split second, she shoved the leaflet inside the first drawer she could reach and placed the folder on top of it, closing it shut. "You were not answering your cell, your mother is crazy after you" David chided lightly. "How are you holding up?" He lowered his voice as he occupied the seat across her desk. He tried to hide it but she could see he had taken his phone out and had already texted her mother before he put it back in his pocket and turned his attention fully back to her. "Can I give you a ride back to Grannys? I think you could do some rest now…"_

_Emma glanced at her father and sudden understanding rushed through her. August had told Neal she would never fulfil her destiny if he didn´t let her go. But Neal had absolutely no reason to want her to break the curse. He was dreading the day she would because that meant his father would come after him. But he let her go anyway. He didn´t do it for the curse. He did it so that one day she could meet her parents and finally have a family. He sacrificed their crazy adventures together hoping she would find her roots and be happy with her real family one day. Crazy or stupid he had been to make that decision for her, she could not deny he did have her in his heart when he did it. That was his way of giving her her best chance. Maybe now it was time for her to give a chance to that happiness he had tried to give her. Maybe it was time to give her family a chance to be… well, her family. Maybe she could find Talahasse with them one day._

_"__Yeah, thanks, David. I think I´ll accept that ride..."_

_With that, they left the Sheriff Station and she never thought about the leaflet afterwards, even when the drawer started to almost fall off with all the new paperwork that was added on top of it._

* * *

"Sorry it took so long, Emma!" Snow came downstairs holding Neal. "He´s becoming fussier every day." She beamed at him and then at her daughter. "And.. Oh,my God, you cleaned! I think Honeymoon did you good, sweetheart" Snow joked as she put her son in his playpen and hugged her daughter. "Are you alright?" She said as she saw what Emma was holding.

"Yeah, I´m fine mom" Emma smiled and laid her eyes on the leaflet again. She considered throwing it away but changed her mind and slipped it in her purse. Her feelings had changed again. She didn´t feel hate or longing anymore. She felt nostalgic, maybe, but not in a bad way.

Hook, David and Henry came in a few seconds later, discussing something about a fishing trip in the near future. She had left Hook with the responsibility of picking Henry up from Grannys for family lunch today and it seemed the pirate had managed to drag David home a bit earlier too. She stopped for a moment, just taking in the sight before her. After being an orphan for 28 years and a rather confused "saviour princess" for a couple more after that, she finally felt as if there was nowhere more perfect for her to be. She felt as she belonged.

_"__See Neal… I am ok now… And it is also thanks to you... We never got to do the Vegas thing but I did it. I did what you wanted me to do. I found my Talahasse"_

"Are you okay there, m´love?" Killian´s thick accent brought her back to reality.

"Never better" She smiled and gave him a quick peck on the lips before heading off to the kitchen to help her parents with lunch.


	10. Consequences

_A/N: I have no idea what the authors are planning for the show this year, but let´s just try to simplify things with a few assumptions for some shots ;)_

_1. They can´t go back to the Enchanted Forest and end up coming to terms with it and rebuilding their lives in Storybrooke_

_2. They are growing old and are allowed to cross the townline without losing their memories or their past (sourcerers, fairies and etc will lose their magic though)_

_3. Snow runs for Mayor and wins once Regina steps down._

_4. Regina decides to start anew and leaves town with Robin and Roland (there is no Marian in my AU). But before leaving she gives herself a chemical degree so that she can become a Chemistry teacher for elementary school. Robin becomes a police officer. They are happily married in Boston now but she still comes over to visit Henry once every two weeks and also takes him away for family vacations._

**"****Consequences"**

"What did I say last time you did something so dangerous, Henry?" David had his arms crossed across his chest and looked down sternly at his 15-year-old grandson.

"That it was okay if magic was not involved?" Henry joked nervously. His grandfather was not amused in the slightest and was about to respond when someone called him from across the hospital hall.

"We are not done, young man." He growled, with a long look at the bruises and scratches on the boy's arms and forehead. After signing him out, David silently led Henry to his truck firmly by his shoulder. He was fuming but had managed to get himself under control by the time they got back to the house he shared with Snow and his younger son Neal.

After sending his grandson to the room he usually occupied whenever he came to stay over, David made a quick call to Granny asking her to watch over Neal for the night, since he had some business to take care of.

_Such as removing a yellow bug with a broken windshield from the side of the road._ He thought, bitterly. With the snow storm going on out there and no windshield, his daughter´s car was probably covered in snow inside and made an action to go get the car but an idea popped in his mind and he decided to take care of the kid first.

With Regina living in Boston, Emma and Snow out for Ruby´s bachelorette party trip and Hook away due to his fishing business, he had been left alone with his 2-year-old son and 15-year-old grandson to take care of. It seemed simple enough, as he had always been on really good terms with both boys.

Until he got a call to the station from one of his neighbours saying that one of them had been found slightly shaken and bruised inside a damaged car after a loud crash. The kid was ushered to the hospital but seemed to recover quite fast and was back to his cheeky self by the time David arrived at the hospital no more than ten minutes after the call.

David made his way up to the teen's room slowly, trying to recompose himself. Despite his witty remarks (_damn it Hook_) and sometimes cheeky attitudes (_Emma genes_), Henry was overall a well-behaved kid (_well, except for the Regina´s vault fiasco, of course, but there was a whole context to that_). This time, though, it had nothing to do with any heroic acts. It was just blunt rebellion and David couldn´t decide whether it was good or not that they had been having such calm lives that nowadays misbehaving just came along with being a normal kid.

David sighed and knocked on the door briefly. After Henry´s faint response, he cracked the door open and went in to find his grandson sitting in his bed and staring at Emma´s car keys on his right palm. Despite the cheekiness shown in the hospital, the kid seemed miserable now.

He touched Henry´s forehead carefully and studied the bruises and cuts. Most of them were not that bad but he was afraid the kid had hit his head or something and according to the doctors, he was not supposed to sleep for a few hours now just to make sure there were no concussions or anything worse going on.

"How are you feeling?" He asked.

"Stupid" Henry answered, for David´s surprise. He supposed acknowledging when he did something bad had to do with growing up as well. He was not sure younger Henry would have ever done that.

Realizing he had earned some points with his soft _gramps, _the teen grinned and continued. "I am really sorry, gramps. I know I shouldn´t have done it. But please, don´t ground me this weekend. When mom comes back I swear I will apologize and then you guys can decide what you´re gonna do with me"

David frowned. "So the only reason you sound so apologetic is because you don´t want to be grounded from the school ball tonight? Well, I am deeply sorry, kid, but I think we will have to talk further than this" Henry cringed at the clear edge on his grandfather´s voice. He knew it was coming and hung his head.

"What were you thinking, Henry?" David hissed, no longer trying to control his rising temper. "Do you have any idea how bad this was? How dangerous, not only for you but for everyone around you? What if Neal or someone else had been out there and you had lost control of that car on top of them? You could have killed someone today!"

Henry kicked himself mentally. This was probably the first time he had screwed up this bad, and with his loving gramps, of all people. Both Regina and Emma would have had his head for this but for some reason letting his eternal hero, Prince Charming, down… it seemed way worse.

"So, what do you have to say for yourself? Not that it would ever justify it but would you care to explain why you thought it was okay to do this?"

"I… I am sorry… I wasn´t thinking. It´s just… Ugh… There´s this girl…" Henry´s voice was barely a whisper in the last word and it almost made his grandfather chuckle.

So that was the phase they were going through now. _Good luck, Hook and Emma. _He thought, fighting to keep his angry stance. "You are going to have to give me more than that, Henry."

"Grace… she´s… in sophomore year… and she was invited for the school ball by this junior year guy. She said no because she was going with me but he made fun of her saying that she would be the only girl to have to.. uhm.. _pick up her date because he wasn´t even old enough to drive_…."

Henry spat the last sentence altogether, his face red with embarrassment and anger. David could not help it this time and gave in to his soft grandpa side, engulfing the teen in a one armed sideway hug. He could relate to doing something stupid to impress someone…

"So I got mad and told him that my mom was the Sheriff and that my grandpa had already taught me how to drive and that I could perfectly well pick her up because I didn´t need permission to take the car… And then I came back home, didn´t know what to do and I wanted to try and see if I could at least get it moving but then…" David tightened his grip around Henry and turned him so that they were facing each other.

"I can´t believe you used your mother´s position as a Sheriff to justify this! That´s unacceptable, Henry! And if you had managed to get Grace in the car you could have hurt her as well!" David bellowed. _God, I knew this was going to come right back at my face at some point. Great whole model, Prince Charming._ He thought.

"How much trouble am I in, then?" Henry finally spoke, his voice low with defeat. David blinked at him, remembering the start of their conversation. His grandson was referring to the _consequences_ he was told he would face if he did something dangerous again after the viper´s episode.

David took a deep breath and thought about what to say next… Being a grandfather to a 15-year-old before having been a father to one was definitely a challenge. And from the looks of it, he had done quite a bad job until now.

"You know, champ…. I think last time I used the word _consequences_ a bit loosely… It does not only mean the punishment you get for doing something foolish. It also means that regardless of someone grounding you, you will probably end up suffering something much worse directly linked to what you did." Henry looked up at his grandfather, puzzled.

"A few years ago, I thought that being the Sheriff and all I could get away with doing something pretty stupid as well." He explained. "I wanted to impress someone. I didn´t want my 12-year-old grandson to think I was just a babbling old man about to have a baby. I got jealous he was getting too close to this random guy who was a pirate and had a hook for a hand." Henry couldn´t help but giggle at that. "So I kinda taught him it was okay to… disobey the law and drive by himself even though he still has no licence or skill to do that whatsoever. The _consequence _of my actions that day was that he could have killed someone or himself today. It was pure luck he didn´t, so besides strangling him for doing something this stupid… I don´t really have anyone else to blame but myself for the bad example."

Of all the scenarios Henry had imagined, his grandfather blaming himself for his dumbness had not been one of them and it only made him feel even worse. If he had hit someone with that car, he would have shattered a family somewhere and he could not stand that idea anymore. What if it had been Neal? His Gramps would have never forgiven him and would beat himself up for that as well.

The two of them just sat there for a moment, contemplating their own thoughts as David analysed Henry´s injures more closely. He could feel a nasty bump had formed on his forehead, confirming he had hit it pretty badly.

"So, now that you know how far your actions can go, both in the present and the future, what are your thoughts on what you did today, Henry?" He finally asked.

"I would never forgive myself if I had… I could have hurt someone´s child or parent if I had made it out to the city... Or make my moms suffer if I got hurt… or worse…" Henry muttered, deeply ashamed now. He could barely think about tonight´s ball anymore as he buried his face in his grandpa´s hug.

"Well, I will leave you to think about it then. You look exhausted and I honestly don´t think you should be going anywhere anytime soon, as you may have a concussion." David said, finality in his voice. "I will be back every 30 minutes to make sure you are okay. For now, you are not supposed to be looking down much, so NO cell phone, NO video games, NO computer and NO books either. I will let the TV on though, to help keeping you from falling asleep too quickly." He added, remembering Dr. Whale´s orientations and inwardly grinning at how much all those were just _consequences_ to his medical conditions but felt as a fierce grounding to any teenager. "Tomorrow you will need your strength as well, since you will be the one shovelling the snow out of the car so that we can try to get it fixed before your mom comes back. As for Grace, I will call her and let her know you will not be going to the ball tonight." Henry´s eyes shot open at that statement and he puffed but didn´t say anything. He knew he was already in big trouble as it was.

David silently left the room to call Grace and to put some dinner together for both of them. The car was on the road to the garage but it was still in their property, so at least he didn´t have to worry about pressing official charges against his own grandson.

* * *

"How´s the Sheriff´s almighty son?" A cheerful voice interrupted the rerun of Friends later on. Henry glanced away from the TV, doubting his own ears to face what he thought was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen. A stunning girl was standing by his door, dressed in a simple strapless blue dress. It was silky and light, going down all the way to her silver hills. Her curly light brown hair went down to her waist, with a few sparkling things placed randomly on the sides of her head. "Done much driving today, hu?"

"Grace, what are you doing here?" He asked, still flabbergasted by her looks. "I thought you would be in Tyler´s Porsche by now…" he muttered under his breath.

She giggled and sat on his bed. "Scoot over. I love this episode and I kinda need more room to sit comfortably with this thing on".

"Why are you not at the ball?" He asked, still not believing she was there.

"Well, I kept my word, that´s all. I told you before you got stupid, didn´t I? That I wouldn´t go to the ball with Tyler. So I drove myself there and stayed with a few friends… but all of them were hooked up with someone at some point, so I thought I might come and say hello. Your grandfather said I could stay for one hour. He is real cool, isn´t he?" She said, a bit way too dreamily for his liking. But he had to agree with her on this.

"Well, he IS Prince Charming" He muttered and risked getting a tiny bit closer to her, making himself comfortable. He would have a whole lot of snow to shovel the next day as a consequence of today´s stunt, after all.


	11. Fairy Tale Family

A/N: author´s note at the end of the story! ;)

A/N: Emma´s family and Snow´s moved to houses across the street from each other…

**"****Fairy Tale Family"**

"I got in! I got in, I got in!"

"Easy there kid." Emma called out, smiling at her son. "I don´t think your grandparents across the street heard you yet."

"Actually, we did" Snow´s almost singing voice cut softly into Henry´s happy yelps. "Your grandfather couldn't stop peeking the window every 5 seconds to see if the postman had passed by already." She explained, beaming at her grandson and planting a kiss to his temple.

"You make me sound like a stalker, sweetheart" David came in after his wife, letting go of Neal´s hand to engulf his grandson in a bone-crushing hug. "I´m proud of you, champ" He smiled and ruffled Henry´s hair, glad the teen was still a good head shorter than him and willing to let his grandfather do that kind of gesture at this age.

A few minutes later Hook came in through the front door, his hair dishevelled as if he had run all the way from the harbour to the house (which was actually possible, since the pirate still seemed not too keen on driving cars even after all those years in Storybrooke).

"Did I miss it? Has the result come?" He was out of breath but could not lose another second not knowing if his stepson had made it to his dream university. The happy faces around the room and Emma´s kiss to his sweaty temple said it all as he threw himself forward and hugged Henry fiercely.

Normally the 18-year-old would have felt self-conscious about being bounced up and down by his stepfather but he could not help beaming at the former pirate´s sincere happiness.

Regina arrived next, Roland and Robin in her toes and all three of them barely waited for Hook to put Henry down before launching themselves at him as well, almost suffocating him. Regina had tears in her eyes while Roland was letting his father know where he would be spending all his vacations from now on. "I can´t wait for Henry to take me to all those cool places he keeps telling us about. The ones his dad Neal took him to!"

Henry´s smile faltered a bit upon hearing his father´s name but he kept it to himself. Regina shushed her stepson lovingly saying they would talk about it later and that he would definitely get to visit his older brother soon enough. At that, Henry ruffled the younger kid´s hair, making him giggle.

"Well, my dear boy… I am sure NYU has nice dorms for their students but I dare say that probably a 11-year-old will not be allowed to spend the night there" Mr. Gold´s cane could be heard from the front door and soon Henry found himself in the middle of another group hug, this time by his grandfather and step grandmother. "So, these are the keys to your father´s old apartment in New York. I managed to keep it untouched by purchasing it soon after we got back from the Enchanted Forest for the last time. I am sure you will find good use for it during the summer or whenever you have visitors coming over"

Henry could not believe his ears as he took the keys from his grandfather´s outstretched hand. He was getting his dad´s apartment. The one he barely got to visit the first time they were in Manhattan. One of the reasons he wanted to go to a university in New York. Besides reminiscing his good memories with his biological mom during the year they spent there, he wanted to feel a bit closer to his dad, to the place he first met him and spent time with him doing normal father-son things like going to the museum or having ice cream. Normal things he should have done way before but never did due to the crazy circumstances of his life…

"What about you, squirt?" Emma´s voice took Henry out of his stupor. He had been staring at the keys for a while now. "Do you remember what I told you the other day? What gift you were supposed to give your nephew if he got in NYU?" She continued, addressing her younger brother, who was now sitting on her lap, still a bit confused about all the fuss going on. How could everybody be so happy when Henry was going to go live so far away for almost the entire year? "Oh, come on…. Don´t sniff like that… Look at Roland. See how happy he is for Henry. You will get to see a lot of him as well. We will be visiting him all the time. Now go get the present!"

Neal came down from Emma´s lap and disappeared to her room, coming back with a small box, messily wrapped with what looked like a wrapping paper made with his own drawings. Henry smiled and scooped the squirt up. Henry knew that 6 was probably a bit old to be carrying the child around but he could never get enough of his little uncle. And the kid seemed to be okay to be babied a few more times before his "Hero" left town for good as well.

"Thanks, squirt." He said, before putting the kid down and proceeding to open the box, being careful not to tear the drawings as he did so. Inside he could see something he had not seen in a long time. The keys to his mother´s bug. It was quite old now but it still run well, even if she never let him drive it. For the past 2 years she had always told him to take David´s truck whenever he wanted to drive. She always said that he was not allowed to drive her bug after the accident he had caused with it all those years ago. (And since it was David´s fault she thought it would be just fair if he was the one to have his car hijacked by the teenager whenever he had events or dates during the last years of high school)

"I thought your dad would want you to have a gift from him on this day as well." Emma smiled lightly. "But I still care about that car. It´s vintage now so you better take good care of it". She finished, trying to sound stern and failing miserably as everyone started to laugh at the word _vintage_.

"More like ancient, you mean… Does this mean I am finally forgiven for that day I took the car out without your permission?" Henry asked grinning, trying to dissipate the emotion that was building up in his stomach as he felt both keys in his closed palm.

Emma was about to respond but a faint sniff could be heard through the baby monitor placed right in the middle of the kitchen island. Before she could react to it though, Hook was already coming downstairs with Liam glued to his hip. The baby was holding a stuffed dragon and seemed more than content to join everybody's party even if he had no idea what it was for.

He stretched the arm holding the toy in Emma´s direction, who tried to scoop him up. The sight made Henry sad for a slight second. Looking from where he stood now, they seemed like a perfect little family of three. The perfect ones people write fairy tales about. The mother, the father and the toddler, with no "step" or "half" or "adoptive" to add in front of the family monikers. Now that he was leaving, that´s what they would become, right… He chuckled at the irony of the thought, given _their _fairy tales were actually nowhere close to _perfect_.

His thoughts were proven wrong sooner than expected, though, when instead of allowing his mother to carry him, Liam just gave her the furry dragon and turned to Henry instead, stretching both his arms at him.

"So, you want your older brother, lad? I think he´s chosen you, Henry" Hook smiled as he allowed Liam to crawl his way out of his embrace to his stepson´s.

"Henwy" Liam said, once settled in the 18-year-old´s awaiting arms.

The entire room froze at that. Emma and Hook had been trying to get the baby to say mom or dad for months now but none of them had any success at that. Snow and David had also tried to get him to say gramps and grams with no positive results. Even Regina was caught by Emma once trying to get him to say "aunt" but nothing seemed to work. And now there he was. Turning his brother´s name into his first word. That alone was enough to erase any doubts or insecurities from the older kid´s mind. For Liam, it didn´t matter that they didn´t share a father or that they didn´t grow up together. He would always see him as his big brother and love him as such, no matter the distance or if he ever got any new siblings after Henry left.

Henry took a look around after the shock of Liam´s first word had subsided. Robin, David and Hook were cheerfully talking about how all of them had lost their bet on the baby´s first word, while Emma and Snow cooed over Neal, reminiscing his first word, which had also been his sibling´s "_Emwa_". To the side of the room, Belle and Rumplestiltskin talked to Regina and Roland, who seemed really excited about going to Manhattan to stay with Henry at his dad´s old apartment. A few moments later, while the adults kept chatting, Neal and Roland started running around the room together as they took turns making funny faces for Liam, who was still in his older brother´s arms.

Henry beamed at the domestic scene. They were perfect already, blood related or not, this was his family. The one he had learned to love and cherish with all his soul, the one that loved him back with the exact same force. Miles apart or not, they would always be with him and he would make sure Liam, Roland and Neal grew up knowing that as well, no matter how crazy their connections were, they would always be his not-so-little _Fairy Tale Family_.

_A/N: Thank you so much for the lovely reviews. Special thanks for Sara for the always long ones! And yes, I´ve read your fics and they are great __J__! Really liked the one with Emma and Regina with David regarding the truck incident __J_

_A/N: To be honest I´ve started about 3 or 4 shots in the last few weeks but I didn´t like any of them enough to publish. This is not my best shot either, but I decided to let you decide if it´s worth reading or not… Pls lemme know __J__i´ll try to do better on the next ones._


	12. Rest in Peace, Lost Girl

A/N: The Charmings have come a long way from the shattered family they were back in Neverland... I wonder if they ever addressed how Emma felt back then though... Please let me know your thoughts on these. It has been sitting on my laptop for a while now... I was not sure if it was good or not..

A/N: How did you like the premiere, btw? I think I was expecting more of it but it´s good to finally have OUAT back anyway :)

**Rest in Peace**

With Snow and David out for a well-deserved new honeymoon and Henry away with Regina´s family trip to Disneyland, Emma was left alone in babysitting duties for the weekend. She usually had no problems doing it and everything had gone smoothly until the last few hours of Sunday night.

Neal was usually a calm and peaceful child but today, probably also due to the lack of his mother´s presence for a longer period of time, he was rather fussy and had managed to through his bottle in a nasty bit of the trashcan while his oblivious big sister tried to change his diaper._ So much for having 12 years of memories raising a child…_ She thought as she went through all the possible places her mother could have kept new bottles. She was certain Snow had some stored somewhere in the house and she could not exactly go buy one now, since it was almost 10pm and there were no 24/7 shops in Storybrooke. _At least mom can´t complain he´s not tired enough to sleep through the night…_ Emma winced, thinking about how inappropriate it was for the baby to be awake and hungry at this time of the night.

"Ha! Found it!" Emma squealed happily, as she took a package of about a dozen new bottles out of the top shelf of the wardrobe, knocking two big boxes on the way.

"Okay, squirt, I´ll take care of that later. Let´s get you to eat and sleep now, shall we?" She told her little brother who seemed to have almost cried himself to sleep.

After having Neal bathed, changed and properly fed, Emma finally got him to sleep in his crib, which was now located right next to what used to be her bed in the loft. She considered for a few minutes why her mother never got rid of the bed to open more space in the room, but just considered Snow White and Prince Charming didn´t really have much time to think about furniture in the past months.

Sighing, she turned to the boxes and sat on the floor, getting ready to sort out the mess. One of the boxes was blue and had some frilly ribbons all over it. She smiled and turned the other one up, expecting to see something similar, but what she saw had her eyes wide with surprise. The box was the same size as the other one but it was adorned with purple, white and light pink ribbons instead.

Tiny baby clothes and shoes, almost all of them in 2 colours, a set of blue and a set of purple or light pink. Rubber ducks with either a blue bow tie or a pink plastic ribbon and many other tiny toys that people would usually buy for their children before they were born, just because they were cute, even if they knew the baby would still have to grow a lot before starting to use most of them. Her parents had been prepared for either a boy or a girl when Neal was born. Or maybe they were expecting to have another baby at some point and hoped it would be a girl….

There was something else that probably came down from the blue box. A scrapbook. That was the only thing that didn´t have a matching girly one. There was only a blue one, which had a framed picture of Neal peacefully sleeping in Snow´s arms while David looked at both of them lovingly, embracing his wife from behind. Emma remembered that picture. She was the one who had taken it and embarrassingly enough, her mother ordered her to join the picture for the next ones, and she ended up taking tons, with both her parents, her little brother, her son and even one with all the four of them, taken by Henry.

Sure enough, the first picture in Neal´s scrapbook was the one with the four of them, Snow was still holding her little brother but her eyes were on Emma, just like David´s, who was on the other side of his wife. Hands on the top of his son´s head but eyes lovingly directed at his daughter. Emma was the only one who had ended up focusing on the camera, one of her fingers caressing her brother´s tiny hand. After that one, there were a few of Henry holding his little uncle with Regina by his side, teaching him how to hold his head. The next pages were full of Neal by himself or during his first bath, first outing and other moments like that. The remaining pages were still blank, as if awaiting for the new moments to come.

Emma ran her finger through the blank pages, mixed emotions building up in her stomach. She was completely aware 30 was a bit old to feel jealous about the attention your younger sibling got from your parents but she could not help it. She couldn´t be happier Neal would get to fill all those pages with all his firsts growing up with their parents but a tiny part of her couldn´t help thinking how unfair it was that she would never have that. They could have another go at raising a baby but she would never get to grow up again with loving parents…

"Are you okay, sweetheart?" Emma had lost track of how much time she had been sitting on the floor by the time Snow entered the room. She had not even heard them coming through the front door and was startled by her mother´s hand on her shoulder.

"Yeah, I´m fine… Sorry, I was just… uhm… looking for new bottles and ended up knocking these down… I´ll finish sorting them out in no time" She said sheepishly and made a motion to stand up. Her mother´s hand tightened on her shoulders and instead of letting Emma up, she sat down by her side, taking the scrapbook from her hands.

"So… You´ve seen the two boxes ahn…." She said while she collected the blue baby stuff and neatly organized them in Neal´s box. Then she called her husband who was downstairs putting away their luggage. She asked him to come up with something but Emma didn´t really catch what it was.

"Yeah… So, you guys expecting to have a little girl on the way soon? So that you can get to use all the pink stuff as well?" Emma tried to sound nonchalant, but the hurt on her words was almost deafening for Snow. Before she could react to it, though, David came through the door and placed another scrapbook on his daughter´s lap.

"Actually, we didn´t get those for our next baby… We got those for our firstborn." He said softly.

Emma was speechless as her mother started flipping through the pages of the newly arrived scrapbook. They were full of sketches and writings, with only a few pictures of the three of them together, some with other town residents as well, such as Granny, Red and of course, Henry and Neal. The sketches were clearly inspired in Henry´s book and showed her the scene of her first few minutes after being born. It showed her parents holding her, with tears on their eyes, happy for her birth and miserable about the fate they were about to give her. The writings, which she could quickly recognize as both Snow´s and David´s, narrated their firsts. The first time she called them "mom and dad", their first official sword-fighting and arrow-shooting lessons, the first time they went away as a family to the beach during Henry´s spring break and a few others, followed by some blank pages, that only awaited for their next firsts together.

Understanding washed through Emma´s mind when she looked at the pink and purple contents of the box Snow had not sorted out yet.

"You got these… for me? When you were pregnant with Neal?"

"We knew you would never use any of those but we could not help it. Every time we wanted to get overboard with shopping for stuff for your baby brother, all we could think about was you… How unfair it was that you were never getting any of those things… so we ended up…" Snow trailed off, not sure how to continue.

"Doing what we would have done had we had the chance to raise both of you. We would have showered our firstborn in gifts as much as the second one, just to make sure our older kids never thought they were any less important than their younger sibling." David said, completing his wife´s sentence, one of his hands resting on Emma´s shoulder. He was hesitant as well, unsure how Emma would react to their little secret. At first they had the intention to treat her to some enjoyable things, without her realizing it, just to compensate for her baby brother´s never-ending supply of baby stuff but they ended up going overboard with the girly stuff as well and started writing her scrapbook even before Neal was born. Then it just felt like too much given how high her walls were back then. So they ended up putting everything away, storing them neatly beside Neal´s box. The only thing Snow had kept downstairs by accident was the scrapbook she had been working on once when Emma came over without previous notice.

Emma blinked, fighting back tears. Then she squeezed her father´s hand at the same time she lowered her head in her mother´s shoulder. Then she closed her eyes. The scars were way too deep to be completely healed. She would never get a second shot at childhood. She would never have everything her baby brother had. She would never forget that for most of her life she felt alone and unwanted.

But she could still try to rely on the fact that it was not really true. Her parents wanted and loved her more than anything. Even before she was born. They were just robbed of her childhood, just like her. Now she had finally found her family and they may not be able to fix her past but they were eager to be part of her future. Not just because they felt guilty but because they loved her, regardless of the weird situation they had found themselves in or the fact that now they had the chance to start from scratch with another baby. For them, she was just as good, even if they didn´t get to raise her.

She would never forget the person she once was, growing up in the foster system and not having roots anywhere. She would never forget the hardships and the sorrow of the life she had lived. But she had finally found a compromise. She could not erase her past but she could top it up with all the wonderful new memories her parents intended to fill her scrapbook with from now on.

Emma smiled and muttered to herself, while she felt her dad sitting down behind her and her mother and engulfing them both in a soft hug. _"Rest in Peace, Lost Girl"_.


	13. Temporary Deputy

_A/N: Tks for the lovely reviews! Special tks for the always thoughtful ones from Sara! And I agree that maybe this season wont have as much Josh and Ginny as we had before, but let´s see…_

_A/N: For the purposes of this story, Regina still lives in her house in Storybrooke along with Robin and Roland and Emma has just given birth. Please remember that these shots are not necessarily related to each other, so please don´t flame me for not exact dates or ages for the new kids =D_

**_Temporary Deputy_**

David sighed as he filled one more cup of coffee and sat down on the chair by his desk at the Sheriff Station. With all the calmness that had taken over Storybrooke in the last few months, there was not much to do during the night shifts now. So Emma and her father had decided they would take turns and only have somebody on duty during weekend nights, which were usually when they would catch the occasional drunk driver or underage drinker.

However, since Emma gave birth to Liam in the previous month, David had taken over the Sheriff position by himself and not being able to switch turns had started to get to him lately. He would have a normal schedule during the week but if he had to go check on road accidents or other random stuff at night during the weekends he would usually feel a bit tired afterwards and today it was one of those days. Due to a minor car crash on Friday night, no matter how many cups of coffee he had, he still found himself falling asleep on top of his desk more often than not on Saturday evening. Eventually he just decided to give up trying to stay up and gave in to what was supposed to be a quick and peaceful nap on the couch.

One hour or so into his slumber, David was brought back to reality by a loud crash. Startled, he got up in a split second, instinctively taking his hand to his gun. But the moment he aimed it at the spot he had heard the sound from, he was met by a very familiar pair of brown eyes.

"I´m really sorry Gramps!" Henry said quickly, putting his hands up. "I was just trying to make room for my backpack on your desk and I didn´t see the coffee mug…"

"Henry! How did you get in here? I thought I had the door locked…" David asked, confused as he lowered his gun and put it back in his hip.

"I… uhm… took my mom´s keys… I was not sure if you would be in and I just wanted to make sure I could… well… I did knock though…" Henry answered, sheepishly.

David ran his fingers through his hair. "I´m sorry for scaring you with the gun. But I do hope you don´t startle armed people ever again, ok?" The grandfather said seriously and waited for the teenager´s affirmative nod. "I apologize for not having heard you when you knocked though. Is everything ok? What are you doing here? Does Emma know where you are?"

Henry deliberately avoided his grandfather´s eyes and started shifting his weight from one leg to the other, clearly stalling. David eyed him suspiciously and waited until his grandson cringed under his stare and finally gave in.

"Well… Emma thinks I´m with Regina and Regina uhm… kinda thinks I´m with Emma…."

David crossed his arms and raised an eyebrow. "And that´s because…"

"I didn´t mean to lie to them… It just… Well… Ok, I have this big test coming up on Monday and it´s almost 10pm now and I haven´t been able to study at all at Regina´s today…. Because it´s Rolland´s recital in one week and he just can´t stop playing the guitar for one second! Then I went back to Emma´s but Liam seems to have a stomach ache or something and won´t stop crying… So I told her I just needed to get a book and that I would be going back to Regina´s for the night…"

The grandfather uncrossed his arms and put one hand in the teen´s shoulder, guiding him to the couch and sitting beside him. He knew this was not the entire truth to why he had left both his mothers´ houses. If he wanted to, he could just have asked his mothers to magically soundproof his room for him to study. "Why didn´t you go to your grandmother´s then? I guess it would have been healthier for you than staying at the station, without a proper meal or bed for you to rest during your studies…" David started but stopped himself just by the look his grandson gave him. "Oh, right… Neal just got that toy drum set from Red for his birthday…" David finished and watched as his grandson let go of a frustrating sigh and just deepened himself further in the couch.

The two of them just sat there for a moment, enjoying the comfortable silence between them. David knew Henry had always been really supportive about both his mothers´ marriages and the teen did a great job with all the kids in the family as well. Roland and Neal literally worshipped him and he had done everything he could to help Emma and Hook since Liam´s birth. But sometimes the grandfather in him felt worried about the older kid. Henry never showed any discomfort about sharing all his family with the new children but deep down David felt bad about not being able to give him as much attention as they used to. Regina and Robin were still adjusting to their lives together as a family and Rolland had only recently started calling Regina his mom. Emma and Killiam had a newborn at home and neither one of them really knew what they were doing, despite Emma´s fake memories raising Henry. Snow and himself… well, they were living through the first troubles of Neal´s toddlerhood. He was about to start kindergarten now and was really attached to both his parents, demanding a lot of attention from them too. Thinking back, David could not imagine how his grandson didn´t get sick of hanging around a bunch of oblivious adults and chaotic kids before…

"You know what, champ… I think I could use some company here, with your mother in maternity leave and all. So why don´t you come in every day until your exams are over? You can have your mother´s desk and also help me out whenever you get bored of studying."

Henry´s eyes lit and he gave his grandfather a bright smile. "Seriously?"

"Yes. But on one condition… you have to call both your mothers right now to let them know where you are, because…"

David glanced sideways to see that his grandson´s phone, was silently flashing non-stop with Regina´s picture showing the incoming call. Seconds after her picture faded, Emma´s appeared on the screen and from the icons on the top, it seemed that there were quite a few missed calls from earlier. Henry had totally forgotten he had left the phone on silent on David´s desk before and stared at it terrified. Then he turned to his grandfather and gave him his signature puppy eyes, which, David realized with a hint of sadness, he had not used for a while now. Maybe he felt as if he was not entitled for that anymore now that he was the oldest kid in the family…

David let go of a deep breath and cursed himself for not calling Emma and Regina sooner. "Fine, I´ll get that but you will be cleaning that coffee mug mess up and you will also be responsible for grabbing lunch and coffee every day for the time you stay at the station. Do we have a deal, temporary deputy?"

Henry nodded furiously and ran to get the cleaning supplies and David smiled at the thought of having some one on one time with his grandson again. Said smile faded quickly though, once the kid´s phone started flashing Regina´s picture again and he sighed, getting ready to face the wrath of two very worried mothers.


	14. Mother s Day

_A/N: Not sure about this one... Just wanted to put some Regina in... Hope you like it... Everybody lives in Storybrooke._

**Mother´s Day**

For the extended Charming Family, there was no more chaotic day than mother´s day. Given all their weird relationships, they always needed to take turns to spend some one on one time with each other during the special events to take place at school or home. A few years into practice made perfection though and by the time all the babies of the family had grown into their kindergarten years or above, they would always work clockwise.

Emma, Regina and Snow would all attend their respective younger children´s school events on Friday evening, since the school direction had determined to do it on school days rather than the weekend and the whole day would be about them, before and after the school festivities. On Saturday, Emma would take Henry for the day while Snow watched Liam and Neal, since it was a working day for Hook. On the next day, Regina would leave Rolland at his father´s care and spend the whole day with Henry, while Snow and Emma would leave the kids with their fathers so that she could spend some time with Emma.

Finally, on Sunday night, they would all come together for a hectic family reunion and dinner, usually at Snow and Charming´s place, so that all the kids could run around and drive their mothers and older siblings crazy.

What most didn´t know though was that a few years into this setting, one particular tradition had been built between one particular "mother-daughter" duo. Neither one knew clearly when it started but at some point into their renewed relationship, Snow started to reminisce the life in which she had been, per-say, "raised" by Regina. Even though quite a few of the tender moments between stepmother and stepdaughter were clearly fake, neither one could deny that some of them were not. Like the first time Snow fell of a horse during practice and an annoyed Regina had ended up teaching her how to do it properly. Or the first time she wore a corset and needed some hand while Johanna was out of town. Despite her eye rolling, young Snow White knew that she was actually enjoying being able to dress a child up, even if she was not particularly fond of the child in question. For some reason, since then, Snow could tell when the moments were real between them. It took a while for the young girl to understand but it mostly worked like that: If the stepmother had a sweet smile to her face, it was not a real moment and they should just work around it like official courtesy, just exchanging pleasantries for the people´s amusement. Whenever the queen had a scowl to her face but did whatever it was that the young girl needed, that was a moment to be held close to her heart.

So, it was with no surprise that Snow warmly welcomed a very deep scowl in her stepmother´s face when she asked her out for dinner on Saturday night, after Rolland, Neal and Liam had finally gone to sleep and before they would collect their oldest for the Sunday together. It had become a habit over the years and at some point Regina did not seem to mind anymore, just adding it to their routine, not without a small huff before boarding her stepdaughter´s station wagon each year for dinner out of town so that no one needed to know about that particular moment. It was theirs and no one else´s, after all.


	15. Dad

_A/N: Hi everyone! I´m already running out of ideas… Any prompts to keep me writing? Please?_

_A/N: Short one based on the last episode, trying to get into Emma and Charming´s head during their brief exchange in the ice cream shop. Hope you like it…_

**"****Dad"**

"Emma, I´m your father, talk to me" David´s tone was lacking his usual calmness. He seemed slightly exasperated and had an edge to his tone, making it much more demanding than asking her to talk. He sounded... Fatherly.

To her own surprise, Emma complied without a second thought and found herself babbling everything she had been bottling up since the Snow Monster fiasco.

"It´s Regina, what she said is right. Between not being able to destroy a snow monster, being trapped in an ice cave and this… It´s like I can´t save a cat from a tree right now, it´s like I´m the anti-saviour!"

Emma stopped for a second, realizing how quick her walls were crumbling down lately. She didn´t feel like the man in front of her was the jerk who had hurt her best friend. He was not the stranger who had suddenly slipped into their apartment claiming to be her father either. He was David, the kind and collected shepherd. He was Prince Charming, the brave leader of Storybrooke. He was her _Dad_, her always gentle, understanding, strong and caring _Dad_…

"You are being too hard on yourself. We all have bad days." His voice was soothing and for a moment, she felt much younger than she was.

"Well, I´m having a run of them…" it sounded like a pouting for her own ears, not that she would ever admit that, but maybe having two overprotective parents around was softening her more than she thought…

"I know but you can´t lose faith in yourself. Trust me" His voice had gone back to the stern father mode but his eyes softened as he started stroking her cheek gently. She felt weird, albeit not in a bad way… and leaned in to the comfort.

Their father-daughter moment was short lived, though, when her cell beeped alerting her to one voice mail in her inbox.

David sighed upon hearing the device, but moved his palm from her cheek to the spot behind her head that he usually cradled whenever she let him. Then he gently brought her head forward and pressed a quick kiss to her forehead. She couldn´t help smiling slightly surprised while she took the phone out of her pocket to check where the emergency was this time.

"Come on, Sheriff. Duty calls" he finished, smiling and opening the door of the ice cream shop for her and following suit. If spending time with his daughter meant battling a couple of monsters and sorcerers now and then, he would gladly to it every day of his life, as long as he could keep protecting and caring for his daughter while at it.


	16. Separation Anxiety

_A/N: Sara, I agree with you on the whole "Storybrooke people should learn not to rely on Emma that much" thing and I´ll work myself up to it in the next two shots or so! If you could read and review I´d be delighted ;) tks for the inspiration! It was supposed to be addressed in the last shot but I couldn´t come around to it, soon enough!_

_A/N: Tks for the reviews and finally I´m getting some prompts! I´m so happy :D. I´ll come around to the date thing soon, it´s already on the writing list and should be up in one or two shots!_

**_"_****_Separation Anxiety"_**

After an entire day of their usual Storybrooke madness, Charming couldn´t wait to get home to his wife and younger child. He´d missed both of them terribly even if it had been barely a couple of hours since he had seen them in the mayor´s office. So, after seeing that Hook and Elsa were fine and making sure Emma was okay from her use of magic on the Ice Queen, he decided to leave them be. Elsa seemed to want some time alone and Hook and Emma… well… as much as he hated to admit it, her being her his baby daughter and all, no matter her age… they seemed to need some time for themselves as well.

When he entered the house quietly, afraid of waking his prince from his evening nap, Charming´s heart almost skipped a beat at the sight before his eyes. Neal was snoring away contently in his car seat, that laid on the floor, right next to where Snow was sitting, her back leaned against the couch and one of her hands caressing the baby´s cheek.

"Hey" he whispered, sitting by her side and pressing his lips to her cheek. Just then, he realized her eyes were lacking the usual peaceful adoration she usually had whenever she watched their son sleep. The green orbs he knew better than anything in the world were clearly suffering and it crushed his heart on the spot, making the pain of when she actually crushed it during the second curse seem like a walk in the park.

"What´s going on, Snow?" He asked, worried.

"I… I can´t… I don´t remember what was the last time I had a decent conversation with Henry… I don´t know when it was the last time you and I kissed… as in _really _kissed… I… apart from right after the ice cave incident, I… can´t say exactly when I hugged Emma for the last time, when… when I asked her if she was okay and if I could do anything for her…." Snow´s voice trailed off, feeling too weak to continue. So she just looked down again, laying her eyes in her son and hoping her husband would understand.

And he did. He had realized how adamant Snow had been lately about always keeping Neal in her arms. She almost never even let him be in his pram or crib for long if she could help it. Apart from the first hours of his life, when he had carried him back to her after the Zelena incident, even he was not allowed to pick the baby up for more than the few minutes that his wife was in the shower or something alike. He knew it was probably not the healthiest thing in the world but he also knew how much she had missed out with her firstborn and he could never bring himself to talk to her about it regarding their second child. But now… from the looks of it, she was the one who needed to talk about it…

"We all understand Snow. You have been overwhelmed with this whole being a new mother and a new mayor all at once and before you had any time to actually prepare for any of that. We know you still care about all of us but the baby just… demands more of your attention. We understand, sweetheart…."

"He cries when I give him to you when I go shower. Henry and Emma can barely touch him without him whimpering to come back to me… I am not only shutting myself away from you. I am also not letting him get to know you! I´ve been terrible to him and the three of you at the same time!" She says, in between pauses that Charming quickly recognizes as quiet sobs. He gently embraces her from behind, slowly reaching for the hand she still had on the baby´s face and intertwining his fingers with hers. He uses their now joined hands to stroke the baby´s cheek softly. Neal stirs but remains happily asleep.

"I know what I am doing wrong, Charming. I just… I just don´t know how to stop it. I´m afraid I won´t be able to." She turns her head slightly, leaning into his touch, seeking his comfort in a way she hasn´t in a while. He carefully retrieves their arms from the baby´s touch for a second, making sure he doesn´t wake and turns her around, to face him.

"Remember what you told me when I first told you I was afraid? Afraid of failing him like I failed Emma?" She moves, uncomfortable about him saying he failed their daughter. That would only mean she failed her too… "Don´t" He warns, realizing where her thoughts were going. "I know Emma does not hold us responsible for any of that anymore. And just dwelling on the fact that we did what we thought was best back then won´t do any of us any good… Anyway… Back then, you told me how we were already great parents to her and how we would work this out. How we would do this the way we do everything else…. We would do this together. And we will, Snow. We´ll work on you leaving him with us once in a while. We´ll work on him feeling okay with staying with the rest of us. We will work on you being back to your normal self, be it a great mayor to this town, a great grandmother to Henry or a fantastic mother to Emma. We will do this together, Snow!"

No longer able to hold back, Snow let go of a few tears that were quickly brushed away by her husband´s thumb.

"As for you remembering the last time we kissed…" Snow giggled softly as Charming embraced her and delivered a passionate kiss to her lips. She savoured every second of it, as if they had been estranged for ages, as if they were under another sleeping curse that needed to be broken. "That can be fixed and can also be scheduled for a daily basis if you wish, my dear princess" he said beaming, as they parted for air.

"Uhm… My dear prince… I was thinking of a daily appointment of something more…" She answered, mischievously. The sadness and guilt she had felt did not slip away from her mind but if she needed to make amends, she might as well start with her husband. She would definitely have his full support once she moved on to her daughter and grandson next.

"As you wish, Your Highness… I´m sure Emma and Henry won´t mind babysitting from time to time…"

_A/N: Switched the word ruler (used by Grumpy in the show) for mayor, due to a guest reviewer´s point. cheers._


	17. Day Off

_A/N: Tks for your reviews and requests! In this one there will be the one that asked for Snow being a helpful mom towards Emma dating Hook and I´ve also put a scene where Snow addresses Sara´s point (not everything in Storybrooke should land in Emma´s plate)._

_It´s a bit long, but I hope you guys can find some time for it. :D_

**"****Day Off"**

"Oh crap! Why didn´t you wake me up, mom? Where´s Henry? Did he go to school? Is dad at the station already? Where´s Elsa?" Emma came down the stairs of the loft, her boots tucked under her arm and toothbrush in her mouth, mumbling a string of words she would never use if Henry were in the room.

"Language!" Snow scolded playfully, setting a plate full of chocolate chips pancakes next to a steaming mug of hot chocolate topped with whipped cream and cinnamon. "Everything is just fine, Emma. Henry´s at school, Elsa decided to go to the station with your father so that she can look through a few more old reports… And they said they would be just fine for the day without you, so you are kinda stuck with me today, sweetheart. I´ve planned some things for us… If you´ll have me, that is…" she added, upon seeing Emma´s confused expression at the news of a day away from her never ending pile of duties.

"I… I mean… well… Hey, where´s Neal?" She asked, a bit surprised once she took in the sight before her. Instead of being on her usual flowery skirt and sweater and holding her baby brother, her mother was wearing a pair of jeans, a T-shirt, boots and a well cut jacket, as if she was ready for anything, from a bar to hiking in the forest. It didn´t look anything like Mary Margareth. It reminded her of the badass Snow White she had met in the Enchanted Forest right after the curse broke the first time.

Snow´s smile faltered slightly for the first time since Emma came down, but she recomposed herself quickly. She was already missing her baby son but today she was set on making theentire day about her not-so-baby daughter who she was missing as well since Neal´s birth. She just took a bit longer to see it. "He´s with Ella for the day. Even though he´s a bit young for playdates I think it would be nice if he got used to being around other children for a change." She answered, smiling and instinctively reaching for her phone to check if there were any new pictures or messages from her friend. She´d been texting her the entire morning, since Charming dropped him over. But the last message she got was still the one that said that the baby was perfectly fine and that she could go on with her plans with her oldest. "Now why don´t you have a seat? I´ve had to reheat these pancakes at least three times waiting for you to come down"

Still unsure of what to say, Emma took her seat and occupied her hands with the hot chocolate mug, thankful for the distraction it offered. Snow sat across her, her own hot chocolate mug in her hands. "So… I was wondering… Have you ever done horseback riding, Emma?"

* * *

After spending a few hours of horseback riding and arrow shooting lessons from Snow, Emma decided it was time she shared some of her experiences with her mom as well, so the mother-daughter duo soon found themselves in the only shooting range in Storybrooke. Snow still found it amusing that they had such a place in their cursed town but well… it was Storybrooke after all, where pretty much anything was possible.

"Now just aim, hold your breath to keep it steady and shoot" Emma said, adjusting Snow´s grip on the gun. Snow aimed accurately but let go of her breath too soon and shot straight in the yellow area. "Well, it took you less than I did to let go of a decent arrow earlier"

Snow smiled and aimed again, this time holding it straight and hitting bull´s eye. Emma gasped in surprise and eyed her mom.

"I got a few years of experience in shooting on you, dear daughter. This was just a change of weapon but still not all that different"

"Okay, I give up on trying to teach you anything else. You just nailed the one thing I´m supposed to be good at" Emma laughed and took a few shots in herself, not missing one.

"You have already taught all of us a lot, Emma. If it was not for you, we would still be wandering around town unaware of who we were and incapable of standing up to our enemies. Nor to be decent to them" Snow said, reminiscing the distant day when Emma saved Regina from Gold´s fire.

The way both her parents always praised her out of the blue always made Emma uncomfortable but she was getting better at just letting it go. So she just smiled and turned to her mother.

"Yeah.. the whole Saviour thing, you know… But it seems I was wrong on some aspects…"

"Like what?" Snow asked, curiously.

"I once told you guys how tiring it was… that being the saviour you never get one day off… but that was not really true. The saviour is allowed to enjoy some moments of peace from time to time. And those are totally worth the troubled ones." Emma smiled and occupied herself putting away the guns that she would be returning to the front desk.

Snow beamed but was careful, trying to not overwhelm her daughter and just enjoy the moment as they left the shooting range and stepped out of the building just to be met by a few drops of water that announced a storm.

"Race you to Granny´s!" Snow said and set off to the diner in quick steps, thankful for her choice of long boots for this day.

* * *

"You interested in the entrance of the bedroom area?" Snow asked knowingly as Emma kept stealing glances at the door Granny´s guests came from.

"Uh, sorry… I was… uhm…"

"That´s fine. You just spent an entire day with your mother. You might as well miss your boyfriend. Not that your father would ever agree to that, but the guy could be perfection in person and he would still not like it anyway so you should probably just ignore him" She giggled at the sight of a bright red Emma. "How´s it going, anyway?" She asked, trying to sound nonchalant.

"Well… given that our first two dates involved a snow monster and one ice wall… I´d say things are going pretty well…" Emma sighed, quoting the pirate´s words. "It just seems that the right timing for us to uhm.. move forward never comes… I´m starting to get over the fact that everybody I´ve ever been with just seems to be… gone… but I still can´t get around to do something as simple as go and talk to him like in a normal… I don´t know... relationship? Well, not that he would ask me out any time soon anyway. I´ve already ditched him too many times…" Emma knew she was not making much sense now, but for a moment it just felt as if it was okay to be rambling. This was her first real friend in life. This was her mom. She would understand her even if she were speaking ancient Greek instead of English.

"So what about not waiting for the moment? Just do it yourself. Ask him out." Snow quipped into Emma´s confusing monologue.

"What?" Emma widened her eyes.

"This is Storybrooke. As much as I don´t like it, my whole family keeps being recruited to save everybody all the time and honestly, I am starting to get a bit fed up of putting ourselves behind everybody's wellbeing. Emma… I don´t care if you are royalty, the sheriff or the saviour. I think you deserve to be happy just as much as the next person. Scratch that. You are ENTITLED to be the happiest person in this town for all you´ve already done for it. It´s bad enough that your father and I are stuck with all the formalities of becoming leaders again, just like when we were king and queen in our land. I love serving my people, but honestly… they are getting on my nerves lately and I won´t let them get to you if I can help it."

Emma stared at Snow flabbergasted. The kind ruler of the Enchanted Forest who always put everyone before her seemed to be long gone now. She knew the kind mama mayor would be back as soon as their mother-daughter moment was over but she still could not help feeling touched by her words.

"So… I just… ask him out?"

"Yeah, and do it while he´s playing darts or something. That would probably be funny and it wouldn't be the worst thing in the world if you could get him to hit Leroy instead of Bull´s Eye for a change. Just a scratch, not a major thing, ok?" Snow grinned.

"UHm… okay, I´ll think about it… But not today… there´s someone else I´d like to run this through before I do it… "

Snow understood and smiled nonetheless. This was a victory already, even if Emma had trouble telling Henry about this at least the idea was now planted in her mind and maybe it would happen one day.

A small crying sound cut into their conversation as the entrance bell to the diner chimed. And soon they found themselves being scooted over on their seats to accommodate David, Henry and Neal´s baby seat. Snow´s eyes glistened at the sight of the baby and she started cooing over him with what Emma recognized now as the smile she had been wearing the whole day with her. It was her mom smile and it made no difference if it was directed at her 30-year-old daughter or infant son. It felt just the same.

"How was your day, Emma?" David asked, curiously.

Emma looked at the scene before her. Snow still had one of her fingers playing with Neal´s tiny hand but her arm was around Henry now and from the looks of it they were planning a picnic day when she would teach him how to arrow shoot. She smiled and turned to the side, looking directly at her father and squeezing his hand for one second before replying softly.

"The best day off ever, dad"


	18. Behind Bars

_A/N: Sorry for the wait... This is for Mari Moon, who asked for one of Emma disciplining Henry. Not my best shot but I really put a lot of effort on this one, since it was a request. Tks for the support! Hope you like it. I am not sure how underage drinking is dealt with in The US but please bear with me for this one._

**"Behind Bars"**

Henry woke up feeling dizzy and unsure of where he was. There was excessive light for it to be his room at Regina´s… the bed was way too hard for it to be Emma´s…

"You better start drinking that water if you wanna survive your first hangover, kid"

Emma´s voice was not unusually loud or anything but for him, she might as well have screamed. It felt as if his ears had grown stereo speakers tuned into a hard rock concert.

"Geez mom… do you have to say it so loud?" His eyes were still closed but he accepted the glass of water that was being forced into his hand and thankfully downed it, feeling how dry his mouth was. Slowly last night had started coming back to him. He had had an epic fight with Emma and ended up grounded from a party at his classmate´s house. He sneaked away after she left for work with the intention of coming back before the end of her shift. It didn´t go like that, from the looks of it.

"Oh, you´ll see loud when my shift is over and we head home, young man" Emma sounded scarier than ever, practically hissing at her son.

Henry cringed at her tone and slowly opened his eyes to see his mother glaring at him from across old metal bars. _Wait… old metal bars? _He thought, confused.

"I´m in jai?" Henry gasped and tried to get up but the dizziness got the best of him and he sat back down, one hand over his eyes and the other feeling the bed again.

"Yeah, that´s usually what happens when you are underage and drinking." Emma smirked. "As you are well aware, I am the Sheriff and I had complaints from Tyler´s neighbours last night. But I couldn't really fit 30 teenagers in this cell so I had to call their parents and have them picking them up at the house itself. As for you, _neither one of your mothers_ were available to pick you up, so you are under arrest until they are available"

The 16-year-old looked at her in disbelief. She as really keeping her own son behind bars until her shift was done?

"Maybe that will teach you not to drink until you are of age and you know what you are doing. I´ve already called Regina and we´ve agreed on your punishment. And we will talk about it once your grandfather´s here to take over my shift. For a start, you can use your time in there to think about what you did and all the stuff that could have happened to you in that state. Now I have to go for one last call out before leaving. If your grandfather arrives before I come back you can explain yourself to him as well. For starters, you can have fun with the new phone I got for you. It has no internet and it´s pre-programmed to call only Regina and myself." Emma snorted and left, leaving a shocked Henry behind.


	19. Back to David

_A/N: Hi everyone! I´m sorry I haven´t posted much in the last few weeks…_

_This is not my usual fluffy happy family shot, but it´s been sitting on my laptop for ages now and I thought I´d give it a try. Please lemme know what you think. Cheers. AU on the last episode._

**Back to David**

_"__David, you can call the searching party off. We´ve found it"_

"Okay, but be careful. We don´t know what she left in that truck. There might be spells or other dangerous things in there."

_"__It´s all right… I´m checking it now and there´s nothing dangerous in here… just a few files…" _Emma continued, seemingly unsure if she wanted to disclosure the rest of the information. It didn´t go unnoticed by Charming but he tried anyway.

"What kind of files?"

_"__Nothing much. Just the newspaper of the day I was found… and a few school essays and paintings. It seems she was my foster mother for a while… But I should go now, still gotta check on other things. Talk later, bye David."_

"Okay, stay safe Emma" He answered slowly to the long beep. She had hung up on him already.

Charming sighed as he put his phone back into his pocket. Even though he had the intention of dropping Snow off at their apartment before heading off to tracking the truck, she ended up convincing him she would be okay accompanying him for a while if they left Neal at Ella´s. His gesture did not go unnoticed by his wife and she softly touched his arm, urging him to look at her.

"Are you okay?" she said, as she cupped his cheek carefully, gazing into his blue eyes that were clearly glistening from mixed emotions.

"I´m okay. It´s just… I´m back to David now, it seems." He answered with a sad smile, bringing his hand on top of hers.

Snow didn´t need any more than that to understand what was going on. Emma had called them Mom and Dad a couple of times now but most of them were highly emotional moments for all of them. During their normal exchanges she would usually go back to Mary Margareth and David. Both of them had been trying to act cool about it but for Charming it seemed worse. He was the one who usually spent the whole day with her now that they were working together so Snow could understand why he was having trouble having her calling him by his name all the time.

"She´s come a long way already Charming. She´s actually used to have us around her now. And she´s the one who suggested they left the B&B and came to live with us. She is finally enjoying our lives together, she does not feel forced into this relationship anymore…"

"I know, I know. And I couldn´t be happier Snow. It feels great that her walls are finally getting thinner around us. And I know it´s petty of me to want her to call me something she never had because of our own decisions… But still… I just can´t say it does not hurt, that´s all." He shrugged and took a seat on a rock, a million things running through his mind. "Did you see how the Snow Queen stood up for her in that video? How she comforted Emma while her camera was taken away? She may not remember clearly but it seems they were close back then… And.."

"And what, Charming?" Snow pressed, feeling Emma´s phone call had something else besides the notice of how they had already found the truck.

"And there was a file in the truck. With the newspaper of the day she was found… and… some essays and school paintings as well…"

"But why would she keep those? That´s something only…"

"Only parents do. It seems she was more than just one of her hundreds of foster parents… it seems she was more like a real family to Emma… Even if afterwards she made her forget about her…"

Snow sat next to him and rested her head against his chest, knowing that they should be out there now, running towards the place Emma found the ice cream truck. But neither of them had the energy right now. After seeing that video… knowing that she kept a file of Emma´s childhood…. that woman had taken the place that should have been theirs… it was way too much… they felt like they needed some breathing room for a change, so they just closed their eyes. The world could wait, at least for now.


	20. Walkie

_A/N: A short one on Emma and Elsa going out of the house in the morning after the ice cave incident… Just wanted to add something fluffy before tonight´s special :)_

**Walkie**

"Emma!"

"Oh... Sorry Elsa! I gotta go! I totally forgot I didn´t have my phone on me… My… uh… parents are always worried…"

"There you are!" David´s voice was a mix of relief and annoyance as he approached the two women. "Are you both okay?" He asked, touching Emma´s forehead and sighing. He knew Elsa was perfectly fine in the cold but Emma had been in the ice cave way too long to be out and about in the woods with her new friend less than 24 hours after being rescued. Sure enough, his daughter´s forehead felt way too warm for his liking. "How many times will your mother have to use the thermometer for you to understand that you are NOT okay, Emma?" David said sternly.

Emma deliberately avoided his eyes. "Sorry… I´m feeling really well now, though… and I kinda needed to make sure Elsa had a decent place to stay. She doesn´t want to stay at Grannys and wanted to know where would be safe to build a small ice cave for her…"

"Well, if you had told me so I could have come with her, couldn´t I?" He replied exasperated. "Please stop making your mother worry so much. She´s already exhausted with all this mayor thing people have thrown upon her… Have you found yourself somewhere nice to stay, though, Elsa?"

Elsa watched their father-daughter exchange slightly amused. Now she was aware of the reason they were the same age and everything but she could not help giggle at the fact that Emma seemed pretty much like a chastised teenager when she looked up at her father sheepishly mumbling a small apology while been thoroughly chewed out by him. She wish she had had the chance to grow up with her parents and sister too. She had them living in the same palace as her for almost her entire childhood and still was not allowed to come even close to her sister and was always advised to keep a safe distance from her parents during the occasions they could be with her before their disappearance.

"Elsa?"

The queen of Arendelle was brought back to the present by David´s voice.

"You can always stay with us if you wish. I feel like it would be the least I could do for you until we find Anna…"

"I will be fine, thank you. It seems you and your wife are the Leaders of this land and I highly appreciate your hospitality. However, the cold has never really bothered me much and I would feel safer inside a house of my own for the time being."

In the flick of two fingers a small ice cave emerged from the ground they were standing, but this time a massive door with nobs came up too and Elsa was quick to open it for father and daughter before scaring them again.

"I apologize, Emma has been trapped with me before, I shouldn´t have made it come up from beneath the two of you, it was not my intention. It will get cold in here soon… and although I appreciate your company I think it would be safer for you to leave now…"

"If you need anything you know where to find us" Emma smiled at Elsa and accepted her father´s hand for climbing down the door of the ice cave. He nodded at Elsa and let her know they would be back for her in the morning to officially start the searching party for Anna. Elsa gave them a final grateful smile and silently closed the door behind them.

"Take this. I don´t want to hear about you not answering your cell again, ok? You´ll always have your walkie on you as well, is that understood, young lady?"

"Dad, I´m not really a teenager, you know that, right?" Emma playfully huffed but accepted both gadgets and attached them to her hip. Once her arms were free again she did something that felt a bit out of character but that seemed just right at the moment. She looped her father´s arm with hers and let a gladly surprised Prince Charming guide her back home in comfortable silence.


End file.
